Tarquin

Tarquin is a chamber opera by Ernst Krenek to an English libretto by Emmet Lavery. Written in 1940, it is Krenek's only unpublished opera (opus 90), though a premiere in German translation (by M.-C. Schulte-Strathaus & P. Funk rather than the composer) took place in 1950 in Cologne. Krenek, who was in Switzerland at the time of the Anschluss, escaped to exile in the USA and a teaching position at Vassar College, where Lavery (1902-86) was a newsp... more

Tarquin is a chamber opera by Ernst Krenek to an English libretto by Emmet Lavery. Written in 1940, it is Krenek's only unpublished opera (opus 90), though a premiere in German translation (by M.-C. Schulte-Strathaus & P. Funk rather than the composer) took place in 1950 in Cologne. Krenek, who was in Switzerland at the time of the Anschluss, escaped to exile in the USA and a teaching position at Vassar College, where Lavery (1902-86) was a newspaper editor in neighboring Poughkeepsie (he would later run for congress and write for Hollywood). The piece was designed for college workshops and used six instruments (violin, clarinet, trumpet, percussion and two pianos) but the twelve-tone music still proved beyond the reach of potential performers; only two scenes were given at Vassar on May 13, 1941. If the title character in Der Diktator and Agamemnon in Leben des Orest were inspired by Mussolini, Tarquin's title character can be seen as a caricature of Hitler (albeit with a complicated... less